


Wonderland

by populardarling



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alice in Wonderland, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/populardarling/pseuds/populardarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Away she wishes she could go. Far away from her uncle, from her life. That’s all Katniss Everdeen wishes, and with the follow of a peculiar White Rabbit, away she goes down the rabbit hole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for PromptsinPanem and took forever to write, and I do apologize for typos. I hope this makes as much sense as a Alice in Wonderland inspired fic can get. See if you can guess which Hunger Games character made it into the world of Wonderland. :)
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> ~Terri

The clouds were shadowing the sun as she ran through the trees, stumbling on twigs and roots as she went. Katniss didn't care where her body would take her so long as it got her as far away from this horrid place. Her boot catches on a root, propelling her forward, face toward the ground. Pain shoots up her arms as she hits the earth.

"Keep going," she mutters to herself, pushing her sore body forward. He couldn't have found it. He just couldn't have! Her hands are bleeding, the warm liquid dripping down her fingers, but even the dull sting when the air hit her wounds wouldn't stop her from getting away, finding the tree. Did he cut the tree down?

The trail ends, stopping her in her place, and Katniss searches for the tree with the knot in it. It had to be safe. There had to be thousands of trees in her uncle's woods with knots in them. He couldn't have found it. Not the one thing she had left of her father.

Tears start to fall when her eyes fall upon it. There, standing in the tree's place, is a stump. Her uncle had been correct when he had sat her down and threatened to take it upon himself if she refused to stop with these boyish games. She had called him bluff and he proved her wrong.

Her vision blurs as more tears pool together, and Katniss stumbles over to the stump, sitting on it in an unlady-like manner. She can't tell if it had been recently cut, her fingers tracing the years of the tree that had held her father's bow. If only she had listened to him, she cries, wiping her snotty nose on her skirt.

"You are at a prime age to start looking for a suitor, Katniss," her uncle Coriolanus had told her a week ago. "It is time to start behaving like the young lady you were raised to be."

Katniss had called him bluff, telling him she doesn't fancy any of the gentlemen she's met at his parties. She even complained of a headache when he commanded her compliance on giving up her frivolous hunting escapades this instant.

Now her bow and arrows were gone. The last bits of her father before the sickness gone. All that was left was a stump of a tree, and what good would that get her?

"I'm sorry," she cries to the trees. "I don't know how he found out." Her secret revealed should not have been much of a surprise. Uncle Coriolanus has spies everywhere on his estate. Every cranny and joint had an eye and an ear, keeping a close watch on his two living nieces. How had she been so careless? Everything down to the boots she wore had been planned for her hunting trips. A pair of trousers she had stolen from a servant, a pair of old boots, and a buttoned up shirt all shoved in the hole of the knotted tree. How did he know?

She sighs, knowing there's no point wondering something that would get her nowhere.

Anger boils through her now, her father's Irish temper shining through, and Katniss stands up, her tattered skirts swaying front and back. "Good evening, uncle," she bowed mockingly to the air. "My day? My day's been splendid! Indeed, it was quite a surprise finding the last remains of my father are now in your possession, burned I assume." Her coy laughter echos through the open space. "But it has always been in your plan to marry me off to an unbearable man so that I am forced to bear his unbearable children, has it not?" The rustles of animals in the distance answer her back, chirping a song that is far too cheery for her bitter mood.

A scream so loud, so piercing, echos in the sky as Katniss lets out all her anger, giving in to the temper tantrum she's been spanked not to have for years. It scares the birds away, the squirrel sitting on the nearest branch to her, and even the trees bow away in fear. Her boots stomp on the floor, her long hair falling out of its curls, and all she wants to do is leave this wretched place.

"Anywhere!" she screams. "I want to go anywhere but here!"

There were no choices to be made under the thumb of her uncle. There was no life to live here. Every detail of her life was determined for her. When was it her turn to decide? When did Katniss Everdeen get to make decisions for herself that involves a bigger meaning than "I'll have no sugar with my tea, thank you"?

A rustling sound is heard from a small distance, startling her for she had thought her screams and cries had scared every living soul away.

"Who's there?" she questions. Surely her uncle didn't have someone follow her to this spot. Then again, someone had to have told him where the tree was in order for him to cut it. "I command you to show yourself!" She picks up a stick, ready to attack her uncle's spy, when a rabbit pops out of the bushes.

"Oh!" it exclaims, looking at the watch it was holding. "I'm terribly late!" It starts to hop in the opposite direction of Katniss, and she follows after, wondering how a rabbit could talk. The rabbit stops in its hops, darting its white head this way and that. It fixes the pink wig resting between its ears and Katniss has to blink twice to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. Was the rabbit wearing clothes?

"I'm late!" it squeaks again.

"Wait!" she calls out, stumbling around the trees to follow this unusual rabbit. She felt so foolish calling out to a rabbit, but it was talking and wearing clothing. It couldn't escape her sight. "Excuse me!"

The rabbit hops and hops until it vanishes through a hole, still muttering how late it was. Katniss crouches down on her knees, peering through the hole. She had been through these woods a million times in her nine years of living with her uncle and never once had she spotted a rabbit hole of this size.

"Rabbit," she calls down the hole, feeling more foolish than ever at calling to an animal who is unresponsive to humans except to run. Did she expect it to respond? "Rabbit, are you in there?"

A small squeal is heard from within in the hole and Katniss leans in closer to see if perhaps the animal was hurt. If she brought it home fast enough Prim would heal it. She just had to assess the damage before bringing it to her sister. She crawls in, her hands stinging sharply at the open wounds her fall from earlier had caused, but Katniss didn't care. Her little sister would love a cute little rabbit for a pet, and the thought of capturing an animal thrilled Katniss to no end. She had to catch this rabbit.

The hole was pitch black, and it smelled of horse manure and flowers. Her gag reflects starts to act up, but she continues on, wondering how far in this rabbit could have gotten in mere minutes. If she calls out to it again, then surely it would run deeper, but how big could a rabbit hole be? Her right hand presses down, expecting to hit the dirt, but instead of moist dirt she falls, losing her balance from the shock of the sudden drop, and screams for help.

The fall is longer than she thought when falling down the rabbit hole.

Can a rabbit hole be this deep, she wonders, her voice now out of use from screaming.

Down down down Katniss went.

The darkness starts to let up, revealing that she is not alone in this fall. Pieces of furniture is falling with her, and she wonders where it had all come from. Her dress catches the wind, like a parachute, and Katniss gracefully descends until her boots touch soil.

It's a strange room, the one she lands in. There were no walls of soil, as she had expected. Instead, the walls were tall books, reaching up to the never-ending ceiling. So many books, and all her favorites too. She tries to pry one open, curious if the words she loves so dearly are inside, but all she discovers are blank pages.

"That's disappointing," she mutters to herself, slamming shut the cover.

The journey down the hall of this room seems endless. So many books, some she had never heard of, line the walls, but there seems to be no way out. No living soul to help her out of this strange predicament she's gotten herself into.

Just when Katniss is about to give up hope and conclude she was going to die in this unknown book room, she heard the squeal of the rabbit. Her ears pick up on the sounds, her hunting instincts kicking in, and Katniss chases after it. Rabbits are skittish animals, always fleeing at the softest of sounds. Her dress swishes and swishes as she picks up speed, and she curses women's fashion for being so impractical, so loud, for surely the Rabbit hears her coming and is hopping faster than ever.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" she hears echoing down the hall as her feet pick up speed, determined to catch this Rabbit.

Her chase ends in a round room. Katniss stops, searching the strange room for the creature. It could have escaped through any of the doors that lined every inch of this room. Brown doors, blue doors, purple doors, too. There were so many to choose from.

The Rabbit must have gone through one of the doors closest to the ground, she concludes, getting on all fours to investigate. To her huntress instinct's surprise, this animal left no footprints like other animals she's hunted before. There were no markings to signify which door this mysterious Rabbit has gone through.

She tries the first handle, but it is locked. The second, third, and fourth doors were all locked as well. Her skirts flying up in a huff, Katniss tries to think of how the Rabbit could have climbed up to one of the taller doors. Not even she could reach some of the handles.

"Where could a silly ol' Rabbit have gone?" she huffs, hitting her filthy skirts. This was a pointless trip. Her uncle will be so furious with her once he returns from his business trip tonight, and surely she will never see the light of day again because he'll lock her in her windowless bedroom forever. All because of this talking Rabbit who wore a wig and clothes.

Perhaps she had imagined the whole thing and it was an outcome of being so upset over her tree being cut down and her father's bow and arrows being taken.

"The way to the answer is never a clear option," a low, small voice states.

It startles her, causing her to look all around at the empty room, but no one is in here with her. Now she's going mad. Hearing voices and imaging talking animals had to be clear signs of insanity. "Who said that?" Katniss demands, clenching her fists, ready for an attack. "Show yourself!"

The voice chuckles, and it sounds like it is coming from the floor. She crawls around frantically, looking for the hidden soul, but the laughter seems to be coming from a small wooden door that is barely bigger than her index finger.

"Are you... Are you talking?" she questions, not entirely sure how to ask an inanimate object this. The golden doorknob to the door wiggles around, and sure enough, it is the source of the laughter. "You are talking!" Katniss gasps, leaning closer and squinting her eye for a better view of the tiny door.

"Anything can speak if you give it mind," the knob smiles.

"Do you know where the Rabbit with the wig went off to?"

"I most certainly do," it prided.

She smiles in appreciation. "Do you know what door it went through?"

"The White Rabbit goes through many doors, but none are her favorite if not mine." She doesn't quite understand how a rabbit could fit through the tiny door. "Magic is the source of all," it riddles. "Magic is the key."

"But I don't have magic," she frowns. Her eyes were beginning to hurt at squinting, her back sore from all this crawling and her tight corset pulling at her ribs.

"A sip, a sip!" the doorknob sings out. "That's all it takes!"

"A sip? A sip of what?"

"Drink me!" it chants over and over until Katniss decides the doorknob is insane. She sits up, pulling at the cursed corset, and notices the room of doors is not entirely empty anymore. There, in the center of the darkened room, stands a table. Where had it come from? Was she so focused on finding the Rabbit that she hadn't noticed it upon entrance?

Walking over, Katniss notices the table has a single bottle with a note on it. She pulls the note open and frowns in confusion. DRINK ME, it reads in big, bold ink. She looks down at the tiny door again, still hearing the small voice chanting. The doorknob had said to drink it. Was this the drink it was talking about? She opens the bottle, sniffing the red liquid in curiosity. It smells like the wine her uncle would allow her to sip from on special occasions.

Thinking why not, Katniss downs the entire bottle. The bitter taste does not remind her of the alcohol the wine contained. It tastes more like medicine. She coughs as the last drop slides down her throat and she waits, wondering if the door will grow now that she has taken the drink. It was the key to going through the door, was it not?

Nothing happens. She feels fine.

She inspects the note, wondering if she had missed something on it, but nothing. Then her stomach starts to twist and turn, making a gurgling sound, and in a blink of an eye, Katniss is looking up at the enormous table that stands in front of her.

"You've returned!" the doorknob exclaims in excitement.

"I've never left," she replies dully, her eyes never leaving the table. How had she gotten so small? "What was in that drink?"

"A snip here and a snip there," it sings. She's in no mood for this, wanting to know where the Rabbit had gone. Now she was the perfect size to get through the door and find the Rabbit. Her hand pulls at the knob, squeezing it as hard as she can to pull it open, and the doorknob screams in pain.

"Stop it!" it honks. "Let go of me!"

Katniss pulls harder, putting her boot on the wall for more strength. "Then open!" she growls.

"Open open," it continues to honk. "That is not the password!"

Her grip loosens and she stumbles into the leg of the table. "Password? What password? You never said anything about a password!"

"All things desired have a challenge. All challenges should be desired." This doorknob made no sense, and why should it, a small part of her questions, but as more time is spent in this door covered room, Katniss was beginning to accept the impossible as a reality. Why question things?

"What's the password?"

"A girl, a girl. What to do? Fire, water, tears, oh my! The choice in which a girl must choose the freedom or young maidenhood?" She stands there for many minutes, pondering this.

"Freedom?" She says it as more of a question than an answer and the door congratulates her.

"My bets are on the girl who follows," it sing-songs, opening its door for her.

Taking hesitant steps out the door and into the bright light, Katniss is blinded by the blazing sun. Her boots step in grass, crunching underneath her, and she gasps at the breathtaking view. Never before in her life has she seen the greenest of grass or the bluest of skies. Every ounce of color around her was heightened so that her mind spins at all the colors.

Birds tweet overhead and she laughs at what sounds like the conversation they are having. It's so strange here, she muses, walking further along the the pathway of flowers. Nothing in her hurts and for the first time in a long time Katniss has no fears. She kicks in the air, sending up red flowers, and everything seems so perfect here! Two chipmunks scurry by her feet and she lifts her skirts to see one yelling at the other in an argument. A soft melody plays and she realizes it's the pretty flowers scattered around on the hill, singing.

What a strange place indeed! A cool breeze brushes by, cooling her from the sun, and Katniss begins to take her hair out of the ridiculous curls she's expected to wear on a daily basis. Her long, shiny black hair bounces down, her curls done so tightly, and she shakes her hair out, encouraging it to uncurl itself.

A small stream is near by, the water trickling down the hill in a soothing matter. She runs towards it in excitement, her throat so parched from shouting to that silly Rabbit. The water is ice cold and so clear that she can see the tiny fishes swimming backwards at the bottom. She finds it odd that the fish are swimming backwards, but the water is so refreshing that there's no point in questioning this other world's methods, for surely this is another world.

"I went through a rabbit hole, chasing a talking rabbit, talked to a doorknob, and shrunk to the size of an ant," she laughs, driblets of water going down her chin. "Everyone will think I'm insane!" A bird perches itself on the rock she's sitting on, and Katniss leans forward, holding her finger out for it to perch itself on it, and says to the bird: "Do you find I'm odd, because everyone at home believes I'm rather unlady-like, but really, I'm just insane!" She laughs again, almost falling off the rock. The bird chirps along, as though it understands her, and it probably does.

The bird flies away, still chirping away.

The sun is so nice on her skin, the warmth bringing her back to life. Her skin has grown so pale without the sun. It's hardly sunny out on her uncle's estate, and her studies prevent her from going out when it is. "It will cause freckles!" her instructor has reprimanded to her many times. There are no mean instructors bossing her around on this hill though, and with her boots and stockings ripped off, dangling in the stream, Katniss feels right at home. She closes her eyes, imagining her little sister right next to her, pointing out all the beautiful things this hill has to offer because Prim only notices beauty. Even when there is nothing but a sack of dirt, there is beauty in Prim's eyes.

An old lullaby her mother used to sing before passing comes to mind, and Katniss starts to hum the melody, not entirely sure on the words themselves. Her body feels like it's floating on air.

This must be what it feels like to float in the clouds, she imagines.

When she opens her eyes it's like a whole new world. Colors shift and shine, making everything more beautiful than before, and her hand sparkles in the sun light like it was created with a thousand diamonds. It's the prettiest thing she's ever seen and her eyes are transfixed on her hand. "So pretty..." Did she speak that?

"Away! Away!" someone shouts. The sound sounds like it's coming from miles away. Katniss strains her head, not wanting to be disturbed in her peaceful spot. The words "Go away" are at the tip of her tongue, but her tongues feels like it's made of lead now, unable to speak.

"Away, away," the voice speaks, pulling at her hair. She swats the annoyance away with her diamond hand and sees it is a little brown flying squirrel. "Poison, poison! Away! Away!" It pulls harder at her hair, persisting until Katniss is sitting up.

Her head spins. Everything spins. Why is everything moving so fast?

Her mind doesn't feel connected with her body as the small squirrel leads her into the dark trees, squeaking how everything is poisonous. Her feet feel like cement blocks, trudging along the neon green grass. Nothing but a high pitched ringing and the squirrel's worrying reach her ears. What is happening? The ground is hard, cold, but it feels so nice on her sweaty body

"Beauty is deceiving," the squirrel tells her, stroking her sweaty hair. "Beauty is deceiving."

It's the last thing she remembers before passing out.

Her head is throbbing when Katniss comes to.

What on earth happened to her?

She looks around, now in the forest, but these trees look different from ones at her uncle's estate, more sinister. A noise is heard from the trees and she's alert in seconds.

"Who's there?" The noise is heard again and the small flying squirrel from her dream scurries down. Her defenses relax, it's just an innocent squirrel.

"You're awake!" it squeaks.

"I am," Katniss says, crouching down to get a better look at the creature. "You rescued me?" The squirrel climbs on her and pokes and prods at the girl's neck. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure no thorns punctured your skin. That would be very very very bad!" She gets tangled in Katniss' hair and she has to untangle the squirrel from it.

"Why would it be bad?"

"You'd be permanently crazy!"

She's talking to a squirrel and it's worried about her being permanently crazy?

"Where are we?" Katniss looks around at the dark, foreboding trees again.

The squirrel nibbles at its hand in a frenzy. "Must run! Must run!" It looks around in worry. "Leave! Leave! Spies everywhere; trust no one!"

A wailing sound is heard on the dark trail they're on and the squirrel jumps into the tree it had come from.

"Wait!" she calls up the tree. "What do you mean there are spies?"

The squirrel doesn't emerge, long gone now, she assumes, and the wailing grows closer and closer. In mere seconds Katniss is pushed to the side by a huge and colorful bird.

"Dead!" it wails in pain. "Boom boom dead!"

She runs after the bird, calling after it to stop. The bird stops by a tree and leans against it, tears rolling down its beak. She had never seen a bird cry before. How peculiar.

She asks it: "Why are you crying?"

The feathered creature hits her in the head with its beak, crying even harder. "Boom boom dead!" It runs away, it's wailing sounds echoing through the forest.

Oh, what a terrible creature, she thinks, rubbing her sore forehead.

The only sign that the bird was ever here is the trail of pink and blue feathers it left behind. There's no other way out of these woods except follow the bird and so she follows the feathered trail, keeping her ears alert for any signs of a threat. She may not have her bow and arrows, but she does know how to fight.

The trail of feathers ends at a fork in the road. This stops the girl in her tracks as she looks around for any sign that the distraught bird had been here. The feathers had completely vanished. All that stood in between the two paths was a tree with signs nailed to the trunk. One sign read YOU'RE GOING THIS WAY and another read OR YOU'RE GOING THAT WAY. One even pointed up that says LET THE TREE DECIDE.

What on earth?

Katniss picks up a blue feather, squeezing it between her fingers. Where could the bird have gone?

She stares back at the signs again, rereading them once more. Let the tree decide? She laughs, knowing for sure she has gone insane. Trees don't have minds of their own. "How could a tree decide where I'm supposed to go?"

"That's a very good question," a pair of eyes smile. She screams in a fright, not ashamed of being startled by the floating eyes. "One so many people ask, but if not knowing where to go why not bother?" A red cat appears, stretching on the lowest limb of the tree. Its grin is a sinister grin, one that sends chills up and down her spine. This cat has to be a spy the squirrel had mentioned before. "Which path do you take to live?"

She straightens her shoulders and back, trying to look older than her sixteen year old self. Katniss replies, "If I knew where I was going I wouldn't be talking to you."

"Maybe you should go to the left," he suggests, popping in thin air on the trail to her left. "Or maybe you should go right. They always do say the right is always the right way." He laughs at his cat's body fades away, startling her to bits. Cats do not and cannot do that. She rubs her eyes to make sure its head really is floating in thin air and it's not just her imagination.

"Where do they lead to?" she asks at last, holding her skirts up as it walks closer to her.

The smiling red cat purrs around her skirts and his purrs seem to sing a song. She never knew cats could sing, but then again, she was never fond of cats to know. "Perhaps you should go straight." He points his tail straight into the tree.

She peers over to see what's behind the tree and all she can see is darkness. There is no trail; there is no light. "Are you crazy?" she gasps. "I can't go in there!" Stomping her foot Katniss demands to know where the other trails lead her.

The cat shrugs, "If you don't know, then how would I"

"Don't you know your way around here?" The cat chuckles, finding her funny, and vanishes, leaving her all alone. She growls in annoyance, looking behind each tree for the stupid feline. This is why she doesn't like cats, Katniss decides stubbornly. They're nothing but trouble.

Her sight is blinded just then and the young woman screams in shock, waving her hands around her face for the source of her blindness. Two hairy arms cover her eyes and she pulls and yanks, but the cat refuses to let go.

He tells her with mischief lacing his tone, "I would go straight; start your own path."

"I'll get lost," Katniss tells him. "Or run into a spy."

The cat crawls onto her shoulder, somehow smaller than before. "Ah," he nods in understanding. "You've heard about King Snow's spies. That is wise." He whispers in her ear, "Spies are everywhere. You must beware."

"How do I⎯" The cat shushes her to be more quiet. "How do I know who is a spy and who isn't?"

"Look for the white that the eyes tell all and a deck of cards will surely fall," the cat ominously speaks in riddles. Why does everyone here insist on speaking in these silly riddles? The cat disappears again, vanishes into thin air, and Katniss decides to do away with such a nuisance and begins her journey through the dark, unknown forest.

The forest is dark. So dark she can barely see in front of her and cracks and snaps are heardfrom a distance, making her jump. The darkness doesn't frighten her, oh no. Katniss Everdeen hasn't been afraid of the dark since she was a small little thing. No, she is not frightened over the aspect of the pitch blackness. What she is nervous of is what could possibly be out in these woods. There is no sun to tell how long she's been scouring through the darkness, but it feels like it's been days.

It was foolish to have listened to a talking cat. This whole place was foolish. Following the trail would have been a wiser decision on her part. It would have been safer.

"To know one's future is an important quality when growing up," Effie Trinket would always tell her during her lessons. Katniss had always doubted everything that left her instructor's mouth when it came to her etiquette lessons, but perhaps the woman had been right all along. She would much rather know her path than die in the middle of nowhere, alone and in the dark.

She screams "this is ridiculous!" at the top of her lungs, hoping maybe another talking animal would come and riddle her way out of here, but to no avail she is utterly alone in these woods.

She finds a rock to sit upon, not even caring about the state of her dress at this point, and collapses on it. Her stomach protests behind her corset, demanding food. "This is hopeless," she groans to no one. "I'm going to die out here, and all because of a silly Rabbit!"

"Did you say 'Rabbit'?" someone asks her.

Not again, Katniss sighs, rubbing her forehead. She has had enough of all these strange beings talking to her, confusing her even more.

"Yes," she dulls out. "Yes I said 'Rabbit' because it's the stupid animal's fault for me being here in the first place!"

"That damn Rabbit was supposed to drop off my load," the voice seethes. Its anger confuses her. Everyone here so far seems to be happy or incredibly sad. "Look over here, sweetheart." There, sitting on the biggest mushroom she's ever seen is a large purple caterpillar, smoking and drinking away. "If you see that Rabbit, tell her I'm waiting for my next load."

"Load?"

"Yeah," he smokes, "My load. Little Cottontail hasn't brought it over yet." And now caterpillars smoked and drank. This world continues to get stranger.

"Do you know how to get out of here?" There's no point denying she's lost.

The purple caterpillar judges her for a moment, giving her a once over. He smokes out of his pipe, circular puffs of smoke escaping his mouth, and she coughs at the smell of incense. "Perhaps," he drones out. She waits for him to continue.

"Well?"

"Why'd you leave the paved trail?"

"I wanted to."

The caterpillar chuckles. "Such a foolish girl." He takes a drink from his bottle and his little legs curl around the bottle, tossing it behind the mushroom. "You should have followed the path."

"Perhaps I wanted to make my own path," Katniss counters. "Or at least I did until I got lost." The caterpillar looks so uninterested in what she has to say that she starts to feel self-conscious about her words. Uncle Coriolanus always did worry her mouth would ruin her. "Do you know the way out?" she asks again.

He points to the mushroom he sits on and tells her to take a piece. Then he hands her a brown bottle. After the incident with the door she doesn't trust anything in this world.

He commands her to "go ahead and leave him be."

Katniss stares at the piece of mushroom and bottle. "What are these supposed to do? How will they help me?"

"You have to read my mind to know that, sweetheart," the caterpillar chuckles. "Just think about it." His fat, purple body starts to lift itself up to leave. "And if you see that damn Rabbit, tell her I'm waiting." She watches him crawl away, leaving a trail of smoke behind him, and she's alone again.

"Now what do I do?" she questions to no one.

A clock rings from behind and just as Katniss turns she sees a flash of white and pink fur rush past her. The Rabbit! This time it cannot get away. She picks up her skirts, trying to be as quiet as possible, and follows after. The Rabbit is fast, faster than Katniss had imagined, and she twists and turns after the white creature. Daylight is ahead and she is thrilled to finally see light again.

"So behind, so behind!" it hops.

The Rabbit leads them to a small, pink cottage, and Katniss is so out of breath that her corset is even more uncomfortable than usual. Damn thing, she pulls.

"I've forgotten the gloves!" the Rabbit screeches in panic. Her hops are higher, more bounce than hop, and the wig flies up and down in place each time she goes into the air. "The Duchess will not be pleased. Oh dear, oh my!" She turns around and spots Katniss gawking, and what a sight Katniss must seem to her. Her hair all ratted, her blue flowered dress torn and smattered with dirt, clinging on to a piece of mushroom and a bottle. What a sight!

"You must be my new assistant," the Rabbit realizes, hopping over. "You, you must go and fetch the gloves!" She starts to push Katniss toward the cottage, and for a small rabbit, she has quite a push. Katniss tries to argue how she's not this assistant, but the Rabbit pushes her into the small abode and tells her the gloves should be on the second floor, in the white and golden trunk.

The cottage reminds her a lot of her uncle's estate with its grandeur furniture that doesn't seem to fit in with the simple cottage setting. She searches the second floor for the white and golden trunk the Rabbit spoke of but finds nothing. She flops on the bed in frustration, wondering why a rabbit needed clothes anyway, or all these fancy and useless belongings.

Her stomach growls again, reminding her of her earlier hunger, and she pulls out the mushroom the caterpillar had given her. It wasn't wise to eat something she was unfamiliar with, a lesson her father had taught her at such a young age, but her body needed nourishment or else she would faint. Katniss takes a bite out of the fungus and slowly chews it down, making sure every bite counts.

The trunk is discovered right after her last bite of mushroom and she rushes toward it in excitement. She pulls the gloves out and is stunned by their beauty. The gloves are the purest white she's ever seen in her whole existence. In all her years around upper class women she's never seen beading done with such delicate craftsmanship. So stunning, she thinks. The material is soft on her hands and they fit her hands perfectly.

It's like they were made for me.

As Katniss gazes at the beauty of the gloves, her hands start to shake in a frenzy. "What's going on?" An earthquake must be happening, but nothing in the room moves besides her. Her head starts to grow until it reaches the ceiling and her feet burst through the window there is so little room left for her. Oh, Katniss gasps, trying to move about. That stupid caterpillar! He had given her the mushroom that made her grow!

Her head pops out of the roof and below, on the ground, the Rabbit is beside herself.

"My house!" she wails, fanning herself with her clipboard. "My beautiful house ruined! You get out of there you terrible beast!" The Rabbit hops over to the house and screams with fright as Katniss' weight crushes down to the first floor.

"Oooff!" the girl cries out in pain, thankful her skirts cushioned the blow of the Rabbit's furniture.

The Rabbit is beating on Katniss' boot, commanding she leave her property this instant. "You are fired! Fired to the ninth degree! Oh, someone, please, burn this creature! Call the King! Call the Cards! Anyone!" The animal hops away in tears, searching for anyone to help, and Katniss, stuck, looks around the yard.

She really has gotten herself into a predicament now, hasn't she?

A chuckle is heard atop her head and she cranes her neck to see what is up there. "Are you always in trouble?" The cat with the strange grin. She should have known.

"I was hungry," she tells him, trying to adjust herself in this uncomfortable position. Tiny scratches are felt atop her scalp as the cat moves around.

"We mustn't eat the things we're not too familiar with." He jumps on her nose and his tale causes her to sneeze. Stupid cat. His head pops up into her vision and he smiles his strange smile. "Sugar cube?" In his paws, she sees, are three little white sugar cubes.

"Are you mad?" Katniss fumes. "Look what happened to me after eating a mushroom!"

The cat pops its head off and tosses it from one hand to the next, her slate grey eyes following along. "Everyone's a little mad here." He vanishes away, only to emerge swinging on her bang. "That's the King's order. Everyone must be mad for all to be happy."

She frowns, "That makes no sense. How is peace achieved around madness?"

"How is peace not achieved by madness?" She shakes her head to shoo the cat off her bangs. "The sugar cube is sweet! Trust those who are the maddest! Sane is dangerous! Sane is greed!" Nothing in this world makes very much sense and all she wants to do is get out of this house before the Rabbit returns. The cat climbs down her face, tickling her nose again with his tale until she opens her mouth to sneeze. Tossing in the sugar cubes, he chuckles and vanishes quickly before Katniss is back to her normal size.

"Oh, that cat!" she fumes, rubbing her face frantically to get the hair and scratches off. What annoying creatures cats seem to be. "Prim would love him," she mutters darkly, standing up and hobbling through the broken front door. "Just like that pesky feline she hides in the stables."

Her head is sore from the hit and her arms and rear sore from being crammed into a small space. That dratted caterpillar! Surely he had planned for her to demise the Rabbit's cottage for revenge on her not bringing him his load of goods. If she were not so afraid of getting lost in the forest again surely she would give him a piece of her mind. Maybe even threaten to step on him if he told her to take another bite of his mushroom.

Why can't a drink be a drink and a mushroom be a mushroom, she wonders down the trail from the Rabbit's cottage. Why does everything in this land insist on being a double meaning?

The path she walks leads her to a small and lively village. It seems there is a party occurring. Everyone is dressed in their nicest rags, singing and dancing to a drunken band and finally, Katniss can smile at the familiarity of the setting. She grew up in a town similar to this, with her parents. For a brief moment she imagines a smaller version of herself running toward her father, squealing in delight as he picks her up and swings her about. He always did that before the illness became too much.

Her eyes focus on the ground, refusing to think of those times. This is a party, a festivity. It's meant to be enjoyed.

A portly man walks past her, laughing away, and hands her a party hat, wishing her a good day.

It must be someone's birthday.

There are presents lining the long table set in the center of the town square and Katniss leans over to inspect whose birthday it is. All the tags read YOU! Well that's a peculiar name.

The music is loud, fun, and she starts to tap her foot to it. Her father used to sing a similar melody to her, she remembers. Everyone seems to be having such a fun time, and oh how she has forgotten what a true party looks like! All of uncle Coriolanus' parties were dull, lifeless, with nothing but harps and strings playing along as everyone gossiped. It was a cemetery compared to this.

A young gentleman with the strangest top hat pulls her into a dance, insisting, "It's an un-birthday party! We all must dance!"

"Oh no," Katniss protests, digging her heels into the ground. "I don't do well on my feet!"

The stranger insists, not taking no for an answer, and they join the group in a square, clapping and stomping their feet to the rhythm. She watches the women on her side, imitates what they do, and steps forward to reach her partner's hand. The man is taller than her, stronger, but his smile makes her think that he is around her age, still young. He helps her along, shouting out what they're going to do next and she is so scared of making a fool of herself in front of all these strangers, but soon the music picks up tempo and everyone is swinging each other around this way and that.

They don't care how I look, she soon realizes and lets out a joyous laugh. She swishes her skirts all around, not being bothered if someone steps on them or not, and it's the first time since she's stepped in this world that Katniss Everdeen is enjoying herself.

"Your step of the notes is quite likable," the man says to her once the music has stopped.

Katniss smiles⎯"It's always polite to smile to your partner, no matter if you enjoyed their company or not!"⎯ and curtsies for him. "I haven't danced that way in years!" she breathes, laughter escaping her. He takes her hand and leads her to the table where all the other guests have taken vacancy. "What are we celebrating?" she asks when he pulls out a chair for her.

"Why," the young man proclaims with such enthusiasm, "we're celebrating our un-birthdays!" Everyone cheers "To un-birthdays!" all around her and Katniss is terribly confused.

"An un-birthday? Those don't exist."

"Why sure they do!" The gentleman sits to her left and pulls out a teacup from his jacket's sleeve. "How many days were you born?" One of course. "So many days to celebrate, why celebrate only one?" He pours her a cup of tea and hands it to her with such energy that the tea sloshes over, spilling on her dress. The man doesn't apologize like expected. The merriment from their surroundings grab his attention, instead, and him and a few other men start to sing a drunken rendition of "Happy Birthday". Except they sing "un-birthday" instead of the actual verse.

Katniss studies the people around her, never one to want to stick out in a crowd, and slowly sips her tea. The tea is bitter to her lips and she searches for the sugar bowl but none is to be found. The man with the top hat notices her concern and asks what's not right.

"Don't you have sugar?"

His smile stops her heart. It's not sinister like the cat's, or sickly sweet like her instructor's. It's the sweetest smile she's ever seen on a gentleman, with a hint of shyness to it. How handsome. "Sugar is for the sane!" he exclaims.

Her lips purse together in annoyance. This again. "What if I'm sane?" stresses Katniss.

The music halts in mid-song. The group gathered around them stop in mid-conversation. Everyone freezes in dead silence and stares at Katniss with a new intensity she has yet to see in this world. Why were they all staring at her? "What? Stop looking!"

The woman next to her grabs her face with her bony hands, turning Katniss' face left and right, up and down. Her brittle face frowns for reasons unknown to the girl. "Spy!" the woman screeches, pushing Katniss away with such force she almost falls out of her chair. "He's gotten to us!"

Chaos ensues. People gather their belongings, their children, scrambling away from her as fast as they possibly could, all screaming about her being a spy. She tries to tell them that she doesn't even know what these spies are or who they are spying for, but the town square is empty in minutes. All that's left is the man who forced her to dance and a grey mouse sitting upon his shoulder.

She asks in wonder, "What was all that about?"

The gentleman with the weird top hat smiles at her, like he knows something she does not. He takes his hat off, another emerging in its place, and pulls out a tea cup. "Everyone is jumpy when danger draws near." He takes a sip of tea.

"What danger?" She looks incredulously around at the empty table. "Me? They think I'm the threat?"

"You asked for sugar," he states simply.

"So? I don't like tea and the sugar takes the bitterness away." He walks closer to her, breaking the distance the crowd had created for them. Backing away, Katniss tells him she is no spy. "I'm lost. I was finding the Rabbit and found my way here. Where am I?"

"Why, you're in Wonderland." He grabs her hand, holding it gently in his and she is amazed at how coarse his hand feels on her skin. "What is your name?"

It is the first time anyone has asked for her name. "Katniss Everdeen."

"Katniss Everdeen," he echoes, grinning from ear to ear. "I'm the Mad Hatter."

"The Mad Hatter?" she questions with doubt. "Don't you have a real name?"

The Mad Hatter pulls his hand away, holding it to his heart in shock. "That is my real name!" The mouse sitting on his shoulder crawls on top of his yellow hat and squeaks something out. "That is very peculiar," he responds and the two hold a steady conversation right in front of Katniss.

She wonders where to go now. The chase for the Rabbit was done. There was no point following it now that it was mad at her. No one in this Wonderland, as this so-called "Mad Hatter" calls it, seems to know that this world is not real. It surely can't be. It defies all laws of logic. She'll have to go back, retrace her footsteps. The rabbit hole she fell through can't be too far from here. Gathering her ragged skirts, Katniss starts to head out of the village, leaving the Mad Hatter and mouse behind. The sun was starting to set, a fire would have to be made, and there was no possible way she could stay in a village where a vast population thought her to be a spy. Back to the forest it was.

"Wait!" the Mad Hatter calls out to her. "Stop the movement of your feet!"

She whips around, her snarled hair hitting her face. "What?"

"It's getting dark," he simply states, looking up at the sky. "You're not from around here, I presume." All his merriment is gone and she sees a teenage boy looking bashfully back at her.

"No, I'm not."

He holds his hand out to her. "Then allow me to let you stay a night's rest at my shop."

"I don't even know you," Katniss counters, crossing her arms. "Why should I trust you? Especially since you have 'mad' in your name."

The Mad Hatter chuckles, his hand still out for her to take. "It's best to be with a mad person than a sane, Miss Everdeen. Trust me."

For reasons unknown to her, she does trust him. And what choice did she really have? If these were the creatures she met during the day... She shudders to think what would come upon her at she takes his hand. He leads her to an old brown stoned building at the corner of town with a sign shaped as a hat waving in the air. She follows him into the hat shop, a small bell ringing of their arrival, and looks around. The front of the shop is organized, much more organized than she would have given credit to this stranger, with a counter and register and shelves and shelves of hats decorating the small room.

The hats are the strangest hats Katniss has ever seen. So many colors, colors she didn't even know existed until now. Some were similar to the Mad Hatter's hat, with the top hat splitting into two other top hats; others were shaped as stars, animals. One hat even had what appeared to have eyes. She leans closer to this particular hat. Where has she seen eyes like those?

The eyes blink, saying "boo!" and Katniss stumbles back, a scream stuck in her throat. Her back hits another shelf, causing all the hats on the wall to tumble off and pile on top of her.

The blasted cat is beside himself with laughter, now on the counter.

"Oh you dratted cat!" Katniss fumes, ripping a hat off.

The Mad Hatter helps her up. "Are you alright?" he asks.

"That cat!" she points. "That cat has been nothing but trouble to me since I've met him!"

The Mad Hatter turns and sees the red haired feline and smiles. "That's the Cheshire Cat." He pets the thing, laughing together like they are old schoolmates. "It's been so long around the clock, my friend. What happens in your days?"

"Hatter, I've come to tell you something," says the Cheshire Cat in urgency.

"What is it?"

"It's the March Hare. The Cards have her." All color drains from his face and his yellow hat looks sickly next to his complexion.

He shakes his head in disbelief. "That can't be! She got the rose a week ago! They're just now deciding to take her?"

There is no sinister grin on the Cheshire Cat now, only remorse and sympathy. "The games they play those dreaded Cards."

Katniss is so lost. "Who is the March Hare?" What are these two talking of?

She is ignored, the two listening instead to the mouse.

"You know the Duchess only gives her powers to those she feels sorry for," the Mad Hatter argues. The mouse continues to squeak. If only her ears were long enough to hear just what the mouse was saying. The Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat turn to look at Katniss when the mouse is finished, a plan taking place in their eyes.

Her back is against a wall, there is no turning away. "What are you staring at? What did that mouse say?"

"Do you know of the Duchess?" the Mad Hatter asks in a peculiar voice. Almost as though she were a child.

"Who?"

"The Duchess," the cat explains. "She is the most powerful person in Wonderland." And the two continue to tell her how the Duchess is a powerful woman who helps King Snow and the Queen of Hearts with their rule over Wonderland. For decades this powerful woman has magic'd the Queen's favorite deck of cards to go out and find the traitors and thieves who roam Wonderland.

"If a Card captures you, then you are sent to their castle, the House of Cards," the Mad Hatter tells her, stirring a cup of tea he'd pulled from his pocket.

"What happens if you are brought to the King and Queen?" Katniss never expected such darkness in this world. "Do they imprison you?"

"They cut off your head," the Cheshire Cat sighs. "The Queen decorates her halls with all the heads and the King has the Cards paint his roses red with the blood of the guilty." Her stomach feels it's going to empty right here on the spot.

"Is it really the guilty that get killed?" She's afraid to know. They shake their heads with such sadness that her stomach drops to the ground. Anyone could be claimed a thief. "What's this about the Duchess, then? Why won't she do anything about it?"

The Mad Hatter explains: "In order for the Duchess to help, the King and Queen made a deal that they would give her their first born child for the use of her powers. She loves her child so. The Duchess won't risk angering the royal couple, but if she sympathizes with someone..."

"Makes her feel sorry for them..." the Cheshire Cat jumps in.

"Then she will grant them with their wish," the Mad Hatter finishes.

"That does sound dreadful," Katniss tells them, truly feeling sorry for the Mad Hatter and his friend, but nothing could be done. "And I am sorry to hear about your friend's death, but I don't see how we can help the March Hare."

The Mad Hatter pulls her to him, spinning her around.

"What do you think?" he asks the Cheshire Cat. "Does she look like she could pull it off?"

Pull what off? What were they talking about? She pulls her hand away from his, her head dizzy, and demands to know what they're talking about.

The cat floats in front of her, thinking. "The Duchess would fall to tears if you do it."

"Do what?"

The Mad Hatter grabs her shoulders, holding her still. "If you help me get my friend back, the March Hare, then I promise to help you trace footsteps to your destination." He takes in a deep breath. "Pretend you and I are expecting a child. We tell the Duchess how we must get the King's permission to reproduce, that is why we are in such a hurry to get to the House of Cards, but really we need to rescue March Hare before her head is cut off and blood painted on the roses." His tone is so rushed at the end, so desperate, that Katniss feels terrible for the man.

She places a hand over his, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You truly are mad, aren't you?"

"Say you'll do it," he pleads. "Say you'll help."

There is no other option. If she helps rescue his friend then she will get home. Surely people are missing her. Is Prim worrying about her? Is her uncle furious at her absence? She needs to get home.

"I'll do it," Katniss promises.

The Duchess' manor is much smaller than Katniss would have expected from such a powerful woman. Every inch of the two story home is pure white and she has to shield her eyes as the sun shines brightly on the crystal white building.

"Magic guards her home," the Mad Hatter whispers to her as they make their way up the pathway. His arm is linked through hers, their act on fooling the woman starting now. "That's why it is the brightest home in all of Wonderland."

She nods, her eyes never leaving the brightness, and she pulls tightly at her new outfit.

Shortly after agreeing to help rescue his friend, Katniss was rushed to the back of the shop and the tiny mouse assisted her on "looking the part." It was a strange thing, getting dressed by a mouse, but Hatter (as he keeps reminding her to call him by) and Cheshire Cat insisted the Dormouse knew her fashion.

"There is no style without the talent of the Dormouse," they both agreed and Katniss had to trust them on that.

The Dormouse had put her in a short black skirt with red hearts patterning around, her underskirts from her previous dress cut above her knees to add volume, and a black corset and jacket decked her upper body. Katniss felt naked, never used to showing so much of herself. The mouse felt sorry for her, squeaking away, and put black and white striped stockings on her to make her more comfortable. It helped a little, but not much. The two waiting out front applauded the mouse's effort and Hatter found a hat that fit the outfit, fluffing her hair out to fit the tiny black and purple top hat.

"You look mad, indeed!" he laughed, the sound a bit unhinged for her taste.

The Dormouse squeaked a goodbye and the Cheshire Cat stressed how they're journey should begin tonight. "Those Cards they wait a day and then the flies come out to play."

And so by foot they walked all night, only resting for an hour or so, until they reached the tiny hill the small manor resided on.

"Why does she have magic guarding her home?" Katniss asks, squinting at the sight in front of her.

He answers her peculiarly, "You will find the Duchess a bit out of whacks."

A smirk plays on her lips. "Madder than a mad hatter?"

"Madder than a mad hatter," he jokes. "Remember to stress about the little human. That's how the Duchess will forever be fooled." Katniss nods, knowing their plan, and rubs her stomach.

"Like this?"

"Perfect." A thought strikes her. She's not very clever with her words. How will they be able to pull this off with her not being able not to make sense? Voicing her concern, Hatter scratches his chin in thought. "Don't think," he decides.

"Excuse me?"

"Thinkers cause too many problems, always so sad." He shrugs. "Don't think; just say."

Don't...think. That's something she's never been told before. All throughout her life people have told her to think before she speaks. Even as a little girl her parents would get so angry with her for saying something rude to the baker, or asking an inappropriate question. And unless it was something that would please her sister, or argue with her uncle, Katniss didn't speak much. This will be harder than he's making it seem.

They knock on the door, the Mad Hatter holding on to her arm so tight, and she wonders if he is nervous. The door swings open to a small little thing. After all this talk of such a powerful person this Duchess seems to be, Katniss was expecting a monstrous woman who was at least over seven feet tall. What stands in front of her is a ghost white woman with green eyes and hazel brown hair, so frail it looks as though she is going to drop the wailing child in her hands.

"Oh!" she cries, bouncing the infant on her shoulder. "You must be the nanny, do come in!" Her snow white gown swishes back and forth as she hurries into the kitchen to fix the crying child a bottle. "Children are so sweet on such wonderful days, but not the day it is," the Duchess tells them. "You," she commands of Katniss. "Come and hold the child. I must get the pepper."

She thrusts the child into Katniss' arms and the poor girl has no idea how to take care of a wailing child. The infant's face is so red that it's starting to turn purple. It flails its arms out of the tight blanket the Duchess has it wrapped in and grabs on to her hair. She yelps in pain, having to have Hatter take the crying thing.

"Pepper, pepper! Sneeze sneeze sneeze!" the Duchess sings in a haunting melody, rushing back in with a container of pepper. "Do be a kind man and cover its eyes," she tells him. He does as asked and covers the child's eyes. The Duchess smiles tightly at them both and shakes the pepper onto its nose. "Just a pinch and that's all that's needed!"

The crying ceases and sneezing begins.

The Duchess takes her small bundle and hands it over to Katniss. "Children are special, are they not?" Katniss quizzically nods her head. The woman dances around the room, her long hair floating gracefully along. Her laughter sounds like music trilling along. "And to what do two mad hatters come with?"

"Help is what we wish to ask," the Mad Hatter tells her, looking at Katniss to confirm their desire. She nods her head in agreement, holding the sneezing child away from her. Little children had never been her favorite thing to manage. She liked them when they were older.

The Duchess folds her hands in front and smiles. "Help can be found if the seekers give a reason fine enough for my attention."

"Baby," Katniss stutters, holding out the Duchess'.

"Yes," she purrs, "my child is so perfect."

"We discovered that children shouldn't be eaten, but one is hiding inside," the Mad Hatter tells. He walks over to Katniss and wraps his arm around her shoulder. "Hiding and waiting. Waiting and hiding. Nine months until the seeker finds the hider."

The Duchess is beside herself. She squeals of joy and asks a million questions that Katniss has no answers to. The baby in her arms starts to cry again and her panic just increases. The Mad Hatter rescues her again, saying how they just found out. "The Cheshire Cat told us," he smiles, and the woman becomes coy, asking how the cat is.

"Fine by day and sad by night," Hatter sighs out.

"Serves a punishment for the wicked," the Duchess laughs out, flicking her hands in the air, and Katniss realizes the Cheshire Cat is not a cat at all but under a spell by the Duchess.

The Mad Hatter kisses the Duchess' hand, flattering her to pieces. "Please, your Duchess. I, the Mad Hatter, and she, the Mad Seamstress, need your help. No permission is bad and we have none. Off with our heads if we find the child!"

The snow white Duchess' mouth forms into an O and she gasps in shock. "No, no, no! Children are blessings! No child with a headless body!" She shakes her head. "It is the permission of King Snow you seek?" They nod. "Very well, indeed!" She scurries off to her study and pulls out a white pouch that glows a white mist, matching much everything in the house. "To the House of Cards to grant permission!"

And in a rabbit's hop they are gone.

"So how old are you?" the Mad Hatter asks her, warming his hands by the fire. The Duchess' magic had brought them to the outskirts of the House of Cards, but Hatter suggested they rest before appearing before the King and Queen. "We must be well prepared for anything," he had warned. And so they made camp behind a large tree, protecting them from sight.

"A lady never reveals her secret," Katniss mimics in her instructor's preppy manner. She even sticks up her nose for the full impersonation and Hatter lets out a loud snort that causes her to snicker. "I turned sixteen last May."

"May?"

Wonderland must not have any months here.

"It's a certain time of year," she explains, pulling out the cooked rabbit they had found. It wasn't a talking rabbit, he had assured her of that. The Mad Hatter leans back on his arms, stretching out by the fire, and asks her to describe May. She had never had to describe a month before, and he told her he wanted specific details such as smell and taste. "Well," she tries, for this was as new to her as it was to him, "May is a beautiful month. The weather is warmer because it's the true start of Spring and everything seems more alive. The flowers," she points to the few they are sitting by, "they are all sorts of colors, and the birds are chirping their sweet melodies. It's really quite beautiful, especially after it rains."

His face frowns. "How is rain beautiful?"

It takes a moment for her to think of an answer that would give her feelings justice. "Rain gives life to a lot of things," she attempts. "It feeds the flowers, the animals... And the sound of it pattering on the windows is nice, soothing. My little sister hates the rain, though," she laughs, remembering how frantic little Prim would always get when she felt the first raindrop. "She's the pride and joy of my uncle, always behaving like a lady is expected, and I suppose most don't like rain."

"I didn't know you had a little sister." His pleasant surprise causes her to smile despite the subject manner.

She nods. "I do. Prim. She's a few years younger." Looking at him now, Katniss asks, "Do you have any siblings?"

He holds up two fingers. "Two brothers. Many days older."

The night air blows against her bare knees and she wraps her arms around her legs to keep warm. "Do they work in the shop with you?"

"The King and Queen beheaded my entire family." All rhyming and joy gone in an instant. Sitting beside her was a complete stranger to the mad person she was beginning to know. Perhaps it's the poor lighting, the fire flickering, but Katniss is positive that this Mad Hatter has such blue eyes, such sad, blue eyes. She reaches out to him, grabs his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. He looks up at her in surprise.

It was something she never spoke of, but something about this land, this Wonderland, made her want to tell a total stranger something painful from her past, too. "My parents," she starts off slowly, "My parents died when I was little. Eight, I believe."

"That's a young time," he whispers softly, looking down at the rabbit she'd just served him. "A young time for cruel, cruel things."

A lump in her throat gets stuck. No, Katniss never enjoyed talking of her parents. Never for when she did all those precious memories she keeps stored away would be ruined by their death, tarnished, and she couldn't let that happen.

It is none of her business, she shouldn't ask, but, "Were your parents thieves or traitors, to be taken by the Cards?"

Hatter shakes his hatless head. "I was too little to remember, but the Cards came for my family." His eyes become so distant, in another world it seems, and Katniss wonders if he is stuck in her world. Where do people often go when they drift away in thought? "They took my father, my mother, and my two older brothers. I was hidden under the hats, you see. Playing a game," he chuckles despite himself. "They're in the King's garden now, as roses." Spies could be anywhere, so high in risk since they were so close to the House of Cards. So close. Hatter looks around and leans in closer, his lips almost touching her ear. "The Queen beheads, taking their hearts, but the King... Well, it is rumored he takes their souls and turns them to roses, silencing them with the red of their blood."

There is not much thought of food now, her stomach turns so. Katniss stares at him, horrified at what he has just said. "That has to be a rumor!" she proclaims in a loud whisper and he has to quiet her with his finger.

"The spies they seek," he reminds, taking his finger off.

"Is that why the March Hare was taken? Didn't the Cheshire Cat mention a rose?"

He looks down at the ground with such guilt. "The March Hare wanted justice, wanted to bring me back my family, or at least one, my father."

"Were you and your father close?"

"The closest," he smiles. "He was the kindest man I knew. So generous to customers he was."

"Did he make hats, like you?" The Mad Hatter confirms her thoughts with a sullen nod. "Do you like making hats?"

"It's what I'm told to do," he tells her simply, shrugging. "The King and Queen tell all."

The demands her uncle would make on the decisions of her life come to mind and Katniss is so mad. No one should another how to live their life. A life is precious, not meant to be wasted, to follow. It was meant to take charge.

She stands up, wipes the dirt off her skirts, and forgets her meal, marching toward the House of Cards. The Mad Hatter calls to her, asking where she is journeying to next, and she simply tells him to get the March Hare.

"No one should tell a living soul how to live," Katniss fumes. "No one! It's terrible what these cruel leaders are doing, impressing you all like this!" He stops her, telling her they would surely be beheaded if they take charge now. She does not resist him, does not tell him to let go of her arms. They stare into each other's eyes and Katniss notices blond locks underneath his hat. How had she not seen such color before?

"I don't find it right," argues she. "I don't think these people have a right to tell you what type of life you should live."

"It's how it is," he tells her.

"It's wrong."

The Mad Hatter nods, laughing at her stubbornness. "Yes, Katniss, it is wrong, but you cannot argue with people with power. Their thoughts are insanity but prove you to be the insane one."

"You're not making sense," she smirks despite herself.

"You always make sense," he retorts and they laugh quietly at this. His arms are still on her, still holding her in place, and hesitantly, her eyes never leaving his, Katniss fixes the dandelion he'd found and put in his lapel.

"My uncle bosses me around," she confesses to him. "He wants me to marry a smart, rich man, and I fear I don't want that in life. I want to make my own choices, do whatever I want, but he is a powerful man, as well. He could ruin any chances I have of escaping his plans."

The Mad Hatter opens his mouth to say something⎯ something sweet she wonders?⎯ when a Card shoots him down with a spade and they are captured.

Their trial is held weeks later. Locked away with the only sight of the execution tables to see. They watch the beheading of the March Hare and she comforts him, telling him his friend must be in a better place than this. The Mad Hatter tells her there is no use to think; their time on the tables were coming soon. She cries plenty herself, a river of tears for the room seemed to flood with both her and Hatter's tears. She confesses how terribly sorry she ever was for feeling jealous over her perfect little sister, no matter how much she loves Prim.

"Prim is the affection of all eyes," she had weeped when the realization of death became real. "Not one person doesn't love her, and I don't blame them. I truly don't. I just wish I could be as perfect, as loved as she."

And he confesses to wanting to paint, that it was his childish paintings in the forest his parents forbid him from entering that caused the Cards to come. He had drawn their family, their name, and that was against what the King had told them.

They clung to each other for the cells were cold, damp, and the tears they created helped none.

To die they were.

Off with their heads and may their blood paint the roses red.

The Cards grab them on their sentence day, dragging them by chains through the halls of heads. If she were not on her way to getting decapitated, Katniss would have wondered why the heads do not smell, but all her mind can focus on is her imminent death.

Wonderland is not as wonderful as the name entitled.

The Cards poke her with their diamond-shaped rifles, commanding they hurry their pace. They make it to a large hall set up like a courtroom and sitting in the highest seats sit an older looking man and woman dressed in pure white and red. The woman, the Queen of Hearts as everyone deems her, smiles wickedly at Katniss, making the girl shrink against the Card in a sudden fear. No, she tells herself. Keep going, and so she does.

Her mind keeps searching about the King, though. He seems so familiar to her, as though she knew him from another place and time.

"What do you thee Cards bring?" the Queen demands in a high shrill voice.

The Cards holding them throw both to the floor. "We, your royal Majesties, bring you trespassers, spies."

"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" the Queen screeches at once, pounding her heart-shaped rod on the ground. "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS AND PAINT THE ROSES RED!"

The King quiets his wife, telling her that time will come, there's no need to haste a kill. And it is during this time of him consoling his wife, calming her down, that Katniss realizes who he is.

"Uncle!" she shouts, standing up and pushing herself forward. "You are the terrible king everyone speaks of!" The Mad Hatter tells her to stop, what is she doing? But Katniss persists. "It's you who take these rights away!"

The King looks down upon her with his almost-black snake eyes, glaring. "And who, pray tell, are you?"

"Your niece," Katniss proclaims. "Is this where you go when you are away? To rule over these innocent people as you do my own life?"

The Queen sucks in another deep breath to proclaim to cut off their heads once more, but the King stands up, looking down upon Katniss. "A disobedient child," he murmurs, amused, and it reminds her so much of how he would treat her in her world that she starts to claw at the oak wood holding the King and Queen up. "Cards, bring her to the tables."

"No!" the Mad Hatter shouts, pushing past the Card holding him. He pulls from his pocket the tiny brown bottle the caterpillar had given her weeks ago. Has Hatter been holding it all this time? He runs to her, pulling her back from King Snow and the Queen of Hearts. "We must run run run!"

They race through the halls, Cards filing out of the walls in packs, chasing after them with heated passion. The Queen's powerful shouts can be heard and the King's wicked laughter laces under her shouts. They run until they can't run no more.

"Drink this," Hatter breathes, holding out the bottle.

She shakes her head, looking back to see if they were safe. "I don't trust it. Not after I grew to be a giant, no."

"You must!" the Mad Hatter insists. "The caterpillar gave you this for a reason, please take it!"

She refuses to leave him. He could come to her world. Yes, that's what they'll do! He was all alone and so was she to a point. They would go back to her world together. The bottle smashes to the ground, Katniss throws it so hard. The ground starts to melt into a dark blue liquid that is as dark as night. Poison, she thinks. The caterpillar's solution to leaving Wonderland was suicide.

A Card discovers them, calling out for others, and the two grab hands together and barrel through, knocking the Card down. "You promised me home!" she shouts as they run. The door is so close, she can see it now. "I refuse to leave you!"

The Mad Hatter gasps in pain, pulling her to a stop and shot Katniss sees. He has been shot and his leg is bleeding profusely. He insists that she leaves, he hears the Cards coming.

"I can't leave you!" Katniss insists, leaning down to help him. The wound is not so bad, repairable, but it will cause him some pain to move. "Bite on your coat sleeve," she instructs. They must get out. They must escape. "We will make it back to my world together, Hatter. I promise you."

His eyes widen with fear, shouting, "Katniss, look out!"

She turns just as a Card swings his diamond-shaped rifle.

"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" is the last thing she hears before passing out.

Rain drops hit her face.

Plop plop plop.

Someone shakes her hard, commanding she wake up. "Katniss," the voice pleads. "Miss Katniss, please wake up!"

Her eyes blink open. One. Two. Three times. It's a boy shaking her. A boy with shaggy blond hair and such blue eyes. She knows this boy.

"Mad Hatter?" she croaks, her voice so sore from screaming. The Cards must be gone. They must have escaped! Her hand touches her throat and it is still attached to her body. That's good. The Queen and King didn't get to them. "We're safe, Mad Hatter. We're safe."

He helps her up, taking great care with her head, but she doesn't understand why. They had escaped death. No one was after their necks now.

"Are you alright, Miss Katniss?" the boy asks again. "You hit your head on a rock." Her hand touches her forehead and sure enough, blood is stained on her fingers.

"Are we in Wonderland?"

"No, we are on your uncle's estate."

She is terribly confused. Everything had seemed so real. "Who are you?"

"Peeta Mellark, miss. The chef's son."

"You don't make hats?" Katniss had only seen the Mad Hatter with his hat off once. How different he looks.

He grins. "I've never made a hat in my life. Let's get you home to your uncle. He's quite worried about you. We've been searching for hours for you!"

Her uncle... Her bow and arrows! She tells him to wait, that she needed to see if he had cut down her hiding place.

The tree is not far from here, for which she is glad because all this running is giving her quite a headache. Tears start to fall when she sees the stump from her dream. Wonderland had to have all been a dream, but this, this was not. Her father's things gone. Forever.

The boy, Peeta, he helps her sit down, saying how there is no need to be upset.

"But my bow and arrows!" Katniss mourns, her head pounding so hard she can hardly see straight. "My uncle took them and cut down my tree!"

"Oh no!" the boy objects. "I hid them."

Her sniffles cease and she looks up at him. "You what?"

Peeta looks all proud of himself. "I ran here as fast as I could when your uncle commanded the tree be cut. All your things are under my bed."

"How did you know?"

He shrugs. "I've been your servant for over eight years."

Now she feels terribly rude. "I... I'm not very observant." Katniss never was good with uncomfortable situations. "Is my uncle furious?"

"He's worried," Peeta tells her, his eyebrows scrunching together when she smiles.

"Good. Let him worry." Her balance is off as she stands and Peeta helps her, making sure she does not fall. "May we go get my belongings from your room?"

"A-absolutely!" he stutters.

They walk back together⎯ Peeta talking a mile a minute about how for years he's been hoping she'd teach him to hunt, and Katniss smiling at him, promising him she'll find a way to teach him. The rain still falls and her head still pounds. What a silly dream that was.

A white rabbit sticks its head out from the bushes, twitching its nose as the two pass, before hopping away into a rabbit hole


End file.
